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Die Bürgschaft, D246

Introduction

This is one of the most famous of all Schiller's ballads. German speakers of earlier generations learned it by heart as schoolchildren and recited it, at the drop of a hat, until their dying day. It is a Teutonic equivalent perhaps of Browning's (admittedly much shorter) How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix. Both poems are full of speed and suspense; in both, the struggle against the clock is the essence of the tale. As in the case of Der Taucher (Volume 2) which was modelled on an episode in the reign of the French king François I, Schiller fashioned the poem from an existing story. The source was a collection of Fabulae — Latin tales and anecdotes from the second Century AD — gathered under the name of Hyginus and published in Amsterdam in 1670. The story is told in Chapter 257 of the collection under the heading 'Qui inter se amicitia junctissimi fuerunt' ('Those who have been most closely linked together by friendship'). The ballad was written remarkably quickly, in three days between 27 and 30 August 1798, perhaps because the poet was personally inspired by his own friendship with Goethe and by memories of the tyrrany of Duke Karl Eugen. Schiller wrote to Goethe saying that in working with this story from classical antiquity he felt himself on home ground. To make his own tale he amplified the Latin original, suppressing some details (for example the actual name of the hostage, Selinuntius, is never mentioned, probably for reasons of metrical scansion) and adding others. It is significant that the ballad was written after the Reign of Terror in France, a world-shattering event which had shocked and grieved the poet, not least perhaps because it was said at the time that some of his earlier plays and anti-authoritarian attitudes had helped to fuel the catastrophe. In fact Schiller, despite his invocation to the 'millions' in An die Freude, was out of sympathy with the mob. The poem opens by inviting our sympathy for an assassin prepared to risk his life by killing a tyrant. Thus far the work seems to be of impeccable revolutionary credentials, but then the story takes a quirky and individualistic turn. The assassination fails, and instead of immediate execution the would-be tyrannicide is permitted to go to a wedding, leaving in his place a friend as trusting hostage. As Bertolt Brecht rather wryly points out in his sonnet Über Schillers Gedicht "Die Bürgschaft", the tyrant was never a true tyrant in having the patience to wait for his revenge — 'Am End war der Tyrann gar kein Tyrann!'. This was a time (if such a time ever existed) when a man was as good as his word, when bravery and truth were rewarded, and when a ruler's ways could be changed from evil to good. Brecht seems to doubt Hitler's flexibility under similar circumstances; the failed coup d'état of Stauffenberg, and the dreadful consequences for the conspirators, proved his point. And yet what Schiller is saying here is that a state is made up of individuai people, and that the goodness of the body politic is dependent on the foundation of one-to-one relationships; the honour of a nation depends on the honour and trust between its individuai Citizens. Although Schiller was never in the camp of Louis XVI and the French aristocrats, he was shocked by the wholesale butchery of the Terror. When he encountered and re-worked the character ot Möros, did he give a thought to Charlotte Corday, assassin of Marat, or to Madame Roland who said, "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name?" As Schiller wrote in Der Zeitpunkt, he believed that a great epoch had been born with the new century, but that the great moment had found only a race of small men. He may have become something of an ivory tower idealist in his classical phase, but he thought it better to persuade others of their error by setting an example, rather than resorting to violence. That the pen was mightier than the sword was of course the source of his own moral influence, exercised over generations of Europeans, Schubert included. In the end of the story the oligarch is touched by behaviour hitherto outside his experience; he is healed in the presence of love. Schiller believed that exceptional behaviour merits exceptional rewards, that if each person takes care of his own integrity, the state cannot fail to become as enlightened as its individuai members. It is an old Jewish saying that if each sweeps his own doorstep, the city is clean. The poem's ubiquity in the schoolrooms of Germany, not least during the Third Reich, was subtly subversive of state power, an enlightened contrast, if the individual had the wit to perceive it so, to the much-prized Norse-inspired ballads of Aryan heroism and revenge.

The story must have appealed to Schubert greatly because it is the only one of his songs that gave rise to an opera with the same subject and title. It is not known who was the librettist of this unfinished work of May 1816 (Die Bürgschaft D435, operatic fragment of sixteen numbers) but in terms of its connection with the classics it is not unreasonable to suppose that Johann Mayrhofer (whom the composer had met at the end of 1814) played some part in directing Schubert's attention to a story rich in features close to his own heart. Mayrhofer was enthusiastic about classical antiquity; as a frustrated censor secretly highly critical of Metternichs regime he would have appreciated the poem's politically subversive undertones. Above all, the homosexual poet would have recognized that the bailad could be read as a hymn to the exalted male friendship of classical times. Although the point is scarcely laboured in the story, the death of the hostage is unthinkable to Möros not only because he has given his word that he will return, but because he loves his friend, as it were, better than himself. In classical terms this is related to the stories of the Theban Sacred Band, to Homer's Achilles and Patroclus, and to the story of Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil's Aeneid. In Schubert's opera the hostage (whose name becomes Theages in that context) is furnished with a wife and two children; these extra characters averted the danger of an ali-male cast which would have been a box-office catastrophe. The libretto of this work (derived from Schiller's ballad without using his words) is held to be one of the worst that the composer ever attempted to set. In 1822 it was mooted that Beethoven should share the composition of an opera on this subject (the libretto was by F L Karl) with Thaddeus Weigl. This came to nothing, and six years later Schubert's friend Franz Lachner applied successfully to take over the libretto. The premiere of this opera took place in Pest scarcely three weeks before the death of Schubert who had hoped to travel to Hungary for the occasion.

The music for Schubert's ballad has been criticised by some commentators as being inferior to that for the other famous Schiller work of gigantic proportions. The supernatural terrors of the deep in Der Taucher (Volume 2) are a gift for a composer like Schubert, and the presence of the compassionate princess adds a feminine touch completely lacking in this, a Billy Budd of ballads with an all-male cast. There are those, however, who see Die Bürgschaft as a superior achievement to Der Taucher because of its tighter formal structure. There is here a tremendous sense of pace, as if the performer is excitedly reciting the ballad to us as poetry with little time to luxuriate in being a singer. At times we are hardly conscious of the music but remain involved with what is happening in the story. Much of the action in the poem is telescoped into the minimum number of words, and the composer follows suit with the minimum number of notes, both sung and played. The action is held up only at very rare moments along the way, which results in a build-up of tension which leads ineluctably to the terrific cries to the hangman, just in time, three verses from the end. In short, it may be argued that the comparative plainness of much of this music is intentional and finely calculated not to interfere with the telling of the story. If this is so, Schubert is doing his best to adhere to the established traditions of ballad composition as practised by Reichardt and Zumsteeg, and approved of by Goethe. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the sharp-eared may detect at various points the Beethovenian 'Fate' motif (a three-note anacrusis plus down beat) from the Fifth Symphony. Schubert was later to employ this unequivocally as the main motif of Der Zwerg (Volume 3) but his use of it here may well have been unconscious; in any event it is less systematic.

Verse 1: The approach of the conspirator and his arrest are over in a flash; the word 'schnell' stands at the top of the piece. The ascending chromatic scale of the introduction never gets anywhere. In musical terms it is an abortive coup, promising more than it delivers. Within seconds of the opening, Möros (re-named Damon in later editions of the poem) is clapped in irons and we hear him briefly interrogated by the tyrant (a mean little recitative full of slithery chromaticism) and in great musical contrast his simple and straightforward answer. After a mere crotchet's rest, in an almost offhand manner, he is condemned to be crucified.

Verses 2-3: There is no change of pulse here, only an expansion of note values to allow Möros to sing a very reasoned (under the circumstances) aria in D minor to the King. He accepts the verdict with stoic courage; there is a courtly gallantry (not to mention chutzpah) in the way he asks for time to take part in his sister's wedding. This is obviously an epoch where 'family values' are taken seriously. The solid long lines and reliable harmonies of his set piece contrast with the devious chromatics of Dionysus's reply. It seems that the tyrant will take a sadistic, almost voyeuristic, pleasure in monitoring the outcome of what seems to him an untenable bargain. He speaks peremptorily and, despite his power in the land, emerges in Schubert's music as some what of a petulant, even lightweight, figure.

Verse 4: This section (D major) is prefixed by the word 'Ruhig'. Möros has involved his friend in a grisly bargain without first asking him, but there is no sign of panic on either side. This is the type of friendship which Schiller wrote about between Posa and Don Carlos and which Verdi was to depict in noble duetting of baritone and tenor. Schubert provides music of almost preternatural cairn and tenderness for a monologue for Möros (the pace of the poem does not permit the hostage to express himself verbally; a speechless embrace must suffice) in which he explains the situation to his friend. Perhaps Schubert intends the long succession of semibreve chords accompanying this aria in simple unquestioning fashion to stand for a strong, silent and supportive character rendered mute by the speed of Schiller's pen, but whose constancy in the background is the mainspring of the action.

Verse 5: The Wedding. The first two lines of this strophe are recitative, quickly dispatched. Schubert marries off the sister with an interlude of old-fashioned courtly wedding music in B fiat major marked 'Lieblich'. Is the shy appearance of the Beethoven 'Fate' motif in this gentle piano music a reminder that, in the midst of the festivities, Möros is mindful of his own fate? There has been a time gap of two days, out of the three that the tyrant has allowed to Möros for the conduct of his affairs. Further recitative places the traveller on his way homeward to face his sentence.

Verses 6-9: The Flood. The four verses which make up this episode are joined together in one large musical structure, more or less in D minor. The patter of non-stop semiquavers ('Geschwind') in the pianist's right hand (and jabbing quavers in octaves in the left) throughout Verses 6 and 7 paints the relentless fall of rain. This is relatively gentle at first but gathers force apace. The hero's calls of distress resound on a long line of Ds (melody is suppressed in order to suggest shouting) supported by strident sforzando chords on the off beats. The Beethoven 'Fate' motif appears in the pianist's left hand after 'Die Ströme schwellen' in Verse 6, and again in the small interlude after Verse 7. Verse 8 starts in the same hurried way but the mood changes at 'und fleht die Hände zum Zeus', a recitative of prayer to the gods. The shape of the vocal line as the voice soars imploringly heavenward is most affecting. The rain has caused a flood. Heavy swollen quaver chords, flowing water, contrast with the falling water (lighter semiquavers) of the previous verses. Bass octaves climb ever upwards in semitones as the river overflows. The tremendous effort of the swim for survival is mirrored by a vocal line which also climbs ever higher until it reaches the bank of a high G fiat on the word 'Gott'. Möros has strained every muscle and only allows himself to collapse after reaching his goal; the words 'hat Erbarmen' allow him to relax for a moment and to sink gratefully into the key of G fiat. We do not remain there long as more trouble is afoot.

Verses 10-11: The Robbers. No sooner are the last words of Verse 9 sung than Verse 10 begins, two beats later. The traveller's trials now come thick and fast. It seems that Schubert is more in the mood to respond to naturai disasters than man-made ones; this episode seems to have engaged his attention least in terms of illustrative detail. The felling of three villains is effected without much vocal or pianistic effort. At least the story is quickly told and the retreat of the defeated hooligans is amusingly commented on by the piano after 'die andern entweichen'. Although it seems that the composer has missed certain opportunities here, there is no doubt that the quick dispatch of this part of the story benefits the pace of the whole.

Verse 12: The Sun. Even Goethe questioned the wisdom of this verse and wondered if it was likely that after a heavy dousing in rain and river the hero would be in danger of death by thirst a few hours later! The first three lines are weary recitative drugged by heat, supported by a blurred haze of tremolandi. At the fourth line of the strophe ('O hast du mich gnädig aus Räubershand') there is a set piece arioso-prayer in E minor of great humility; we also glimpse the tenderness felt for the friend, 'der liebende'. After a great deal of hectic music this seems the right musical moment for a moment of repose.

Verse 13: The Stream. It is the music from this section that Schubert chose to use again in his opera of the same name a year later. In Number 14 of Die Bürgschaft at the 'Poco andante' section we find a reappearance of this aria note for note, the strings weaving the piano's watery accompaniment and the oboe playing the beautiful melody at 'Und horch! da sprudelt es silberhell.' It is little wonder that the baritone in the opera sings in counterpoint to the main tune rather than being entrusted with the D major melody itself which is in a most uncomfortable high-lying tessitura; by 1816 the composer was more aware of the differences between instrumental and vocal ranges. Nevertheless, this little moment of respite in the ballad is one of the most notable pre-echoes in the composer's output of the immortai hymn to love of 'O Bächlein meiner Liebe' from Der Neugierige in Die schöne Müllerin. In the cycle and in the opera (and in this ballad) this stream is so life-saving and so important that it has a magical quality; it bubbles forth with a type of holy water — holy at least to Schubertians.

Verses 14-17: The B fiat section (marked 'Langsam') of 'Und die Sonne blickt' seems almost too leisurely for someone who needs to hurry at all costs. However, the solemn moment which registers the beauties of nature is soon over. (Could there ever have been more confusing climatic conditions within a space of a day, and within a few miles, than in this story? Let us be charitable and put everything down to the changeable island weather of Sicily which Goethe, if not Schiller, knew at first hand!). From 'Und zwei Wand'rer sieht er' we return to a substantial fast movement (marked 'Geschwind') which balances the storm music earlier in the piece. The shape of the accompanying figure here is prophetic of the music for Viola (Volume 3) from the sixth verse, 'Du Viola, zartes Kind.' Möros overhears two travellers talking of the imminent crucifixion of his friend, and tension mounts as we move into the final lap, always pushed forward by urgent quavers in the accompaniment. In the little scene with the majordomo Philostratus (a confrontation between master and retainer which is often found in Greek theatre) there is a touching melody in Verse 16 at 'Von Stunde zu Stunde', but by this time we almost want to shake the old man as he slowly recounts his news ('Etwas langsamer') when every second now counts. But this is part of the plan; in terms of tempo we have to reculer, pour mieux sauter. The tempo becomes more agitated as our hero decides to return even if he is too late, and whatever the consequences. The statements of Verse 17 are the ultimate articles of faith of friendship. The piano interlude after und glaube an Lieb' und Treue' is of a tempestuous Beethovenian turn of phrase. The music is very directional; it bears down on the key of E flat as if pushing aside any onlookers and following a narrowing road into a city.

Verses 18-19: In a final burst of energy, Möros approaches the site of the dreadful crucifixion, and of course he is just in time. Schubert manages to save one of the most powerful moments in the piece for the heartfelt cry of '"Mich, Henker!" ruft er, "erwürget!"'. It seems to hit exactly the right note of distress and great-hearted self-sacrifice. The hushed piano interlude after his outburst is very simple but leads effectively into the dumbstruck music of the astounded crowd of verse 19. The euphonious thirds of friendship (Verdi much later used the device to suggest the closeness of Don Carlos and Rodrigo) throughout this section and especially under 'Da sieht man kein Auge tränenleer' are harmonie balm on emotional wounds, and they accurately presage the reconciliation which is now about to take place. (20) Schubert keeps one masterstroke for the last page of the work. These are the four blocks of chords separated by rests which effect the conversion of the tyrant — juxtapositions of fortissimo harmonies which reflect quizzical disbelief as well as the miracle of something extraordinary being revealed to someone formerly blind. John Reed finds this music prophetic of Scarpia's chords in Tosca. If this is so one has to imagine here a converted Scarpia, or rather a Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. The final aria for Dionysus is warmly genial, and suddenly humanised. Fischer-Dieskau says that this has "too much Viennese Gemütlichkeit in it to be wholly effective." But the point is that the tyrant has become a civilised Mensch in the miraculous twinkling of an eye, and for the young Schubert this means that he has the new-found ability to be charming and urbane and forgiving. He could pay the tyrant no higher compliment than to clothe him in new garments, the musical apparel of his own home town. Like many another ballad (including the longest of all, Adelwold und Emma, Volume 10) the work ends with such a tiny postlude that it seems almost unworthy of the size of the preceding song. (Almost all innovations and inventions in Lieder belong to Schubert, but it was not until Schumann that it occurred to a major song composer to finish a large vocal work with an extended piano postlude.) Perhaps Schubert thought it sufficiently significant that these two bars at the end should contain Beethoven's 'Fate' motif in an unexpectedly warm and genial metamorphosis.

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Moros, his dagger concealed in his cloak,
stealthily approached the tyrant Dionysus.
The henchman clapped him in irons.
‘What did you intend with your dagger? Speak!’
the evil tyrant asked menacingly.
‘To free this city from the tyrant.’
‘You shall rue this on the cross.’

‘I am’, he said, ‘ready to die,
and do not beg for my life.
But if you will show me clemency
I ask from you three days’ grace
until I have given my sister in marriage.
As surety I will leave you my friend –
if I fail, then hang him.’

The king smiled with evil cunning,
and after reflecting a while spoke:
‘I will grant you three days,
but know this: if the time runs out
before you are returned to me
he must die instead of you,
but you will be spared punishment.’

He went to his friend. ‘The king decrees
that I am to pay on the cross with my life
for my attempted crime.
But he is willing to grant me three days’ grace
until I have married my sister to her spouse.
Stand surety with the king
until I return to redeem the bond.’

Silently his faithful friend embraced him,
and gave himself up to the tyrant.
Moros departed.
Before the third day dawnedv
he had quickly married his sister to her
betrothed.
He now hastened home with troubled soul
lest he should fail to meet the appointed time.

Then rain poured down ceaselessly;
torrents streamed down the mountains;
brooks and rivers swelled.
When he came to the bank, staff in hand,
the bridge was swept down by the whirlpool,
and the thundering waves destroyed
its crashing arches.

Disconsolate, he trudged along the bank.
However far his eyes travelled,
and his shouts resounded,
no boat left the safety of the banks
to carry him to the shore he sought.
No boatman steered his ferry,
and the turbulent river became a sea.

He fell on the bank, sobbing and imploring,
he raised his hands to Zeus:
‘O curb the raging torrent!
The hours speed by, the sun stands
at its zenith, and when it sets
and I cannot reach the city,
my friend will die for me.’

But the river grew ever more angry;
wave upon wave broke,
and hour upon hour flew by.
Gripped by fear he took courage,
and flung himself into the seething flood;
with powerful arms he clove
the waters, and a god had mercy on him.

He reached the bank and hastened on,
thanking the god that saved him.
Then a band of robbers
stormed from the dark recesses of the forest
blocking his path and threatening death.
They halted the traveller’s swift course
with their menacing clubs.

‘What do you want?’ he cried, pale with terror,
‘I have nothing but my life,
and that I must give to the king!’
He seized the club of the one nearest him:
‘For the sake of my friend, have mercy!’
Then with mighty blows he felled three of them,
and the others escaped.

The sun shed its glowing fire
and from their ceaseless exertion
his weary knees gave way. ‘You have
mercifully saved me from the hands of robbers,
you have saved me from the river and brought me
to the sacred land. Am I to die of thirst here,
and is my devoted friend to perish?’

But hark, a silvery bubbling sound
close by, like rippling water.
He stopped and listened quietly;
and lo, bubbling from the rock,
a living spring gushed forth.
Joyfully he stopped
to refresh his burning body.

Now the sun shone through the green branches,
and upon the radiant fields
the trees’ gigantic shadows.
He saw two travellers on the road
and with rapid steps was about to overtake them
when he heard them speak these words:
‘Now he is being bound to the cross.’

Fear quickened his steps;
he was driven on by torments of anxiety;
then in the sun’s dying rays,
the towers of Syracuse glinted from afar,
and Philostratus, his household’s faithful steward,
came towards him.
With horror he recognized his master.

‘Turn back! You will not save your friend now.
So save your own life!
At this moment he meets his death.
From hour to hour he awaited
your return with hope in his soul;
the tyrant’s derision could not weaken
his courageous faith.’

‘If it is too late, if I cannot
appear before him as his welcome saviour,
then let death unite us.
The bloodthirsty tyrant shall never gloat
that one friend broke his pledge to another –
let him slaughter two victims
and believe in love and loyalty.’

The sun set as he reached the gate
and saw the cross already raised,
surrounded by a gaping throng.
His friend was already being hoisted up by
the ropes when he forced his way through the
dense crowd. ‘Kill me, hangman!’ he cried.
‘It is I for whom he stood surety.’

The people standing by were seized with
astonishment; the two friends were in each others’
arms, weeping with grief and joy.
No eye was without tears;
the wondrous tidings reached the king;
he was stirred by humane feelings, and at once
summoned the friends before his throne.

He looked at them long, amazed,
then he spoke: ‘You have succeeded,
you have conquered this heart of mine.
Loyalty is no vain delusion –
then take me, too, as a friend.
Grant me this request: admit me
as the third in your fellowship.’